RENEE YOUNG CONDUCTS AN IN-RING INTERVIEW WITH SHINSUKE NAKAMURA- bad segment
After weeks and weeks and weeks, someone finally asks Nakamura how he feels about Jinder’s racism, but I’d first like to discuss WWE’s kayfabe response to it, which has been… nothing, really. I get that this is pro wrestling and people say mean things all the time, but for a promotion that loves to try to convince everyone that they’re so progressive you’d think they would take some sort of stronger stance against it. I don’t remember hearing either Shane or Bryan say anything about it, and every time an announcer has brought it up they have referred to Jinder’s comments as “divisive” or saying that “some people feel he went too far,” but I have yet to hear any announcer even go so far as to give the old standard in this sort of situation, which would be at least saying in a very insistent voice that Jinder’s statements are his own and do not represent the beliefs of the WWE or the USA Network. The WWE Network will often have disclaimers telling us that the stuff you see on some old edition of Raw or Nitro “may contain some content that does not reflect WWE’s corporate views,” so why can’t we get that here, in an in-universe situation where it would make perfect sense? Instead we’ve got everyone doing whatever they can to beat around the bush about it all even though they’ve already put out a very non-kayfabe apology for it.

Nakamura recites the whole “sticks and stones” adage, which is bound to make every other babyface look bad when they get angry at a heel for insulting them. They then had Nakamura say some crap about “the fear of the unknown” or something like that. Why can’t he just say the TV-acceptable equivalent of “f*ck you, Jinder. You made fun of my accent and my country and my race, so this Sunday at Hell in a Cell I’m going to kick your ass and take your WWE World Heavyweight Title!” or something like that?
The Singh Brothers showed up to interrupt Nakamura. They caused a distraction so that Jinder could jump Nakamura from behind. Nakamura fought back and beat him up. The idiot Singh Brothers just stood there and watched. Then, when Nakamura was done with Jinder, one of them- yes, just one- charged into the ring and got beaten up, and only once Nakamura was done with him did the other one come in. Morons.
Jinder got back up but Nakamura knocked him down and set up for the Kinshasa but the Singh Brothers held his legs so he couldn’t move and Jinder nailed him with a few good shots. They beat Nakamura down and Jinder hit him with the Khallas. I would say that his was a fine go-home angle, except that this is the Hell in a Cell PPV and the entire story of Jinder’s push has been that interference by the Singh Brothers is the only way he can win and it has been going on for six months now… and somehow this match has not been booked to be inside the big scary steel cage of ultimate blow-off-ish-ness.
Meanwhile, the Usos vs. New Day feud, which has featured zero outside interference in their title matches even when New Day theoretically could have done so because they were having a Street Fight, is taking place inside Hell in a Cell. It baffles me that the people who write this show don’t realize how stupid this makes them look.

CHARLOTTE FLAIR & BECKY LYNCH vs. NATALYA & CARMELLA (w/James Ellsworth)- 4.25/10
While Nattie was making her entrance we were shown a backstage segment from earlier today in which Nattie warned Carmella that she had better not try to cash in MITB, either tonight or at the PPV. What was the point of her saying this? Does she really think this will dissuade Carmella from doing anything? And if so, does she make a point to go find Carmella and say this to her at every single show?
Nattie said Ellsworth was a dog, so Ellsworth barked. Nattie then noted that if Ellsworth was a male dog, then Carmella must be a female dog, which sounds like it could have been a good line, but they found the clumsiest way possible to say this.
When I saw that they were partners, my first reaction was to say “oh great. These two are teaming up yet again. We’ve seen this a million times already,” but when I checked my records, they actually haven’t teamed up in over a month. The fact that I still had the feeling that this was repetitive does not reflect well on the WWE product.
Corey Graves pointed out that Becky and Charlotte’s stupid tea-cup things is the sort of thing that thirteen-year-old girls would do… and he’s really not wrong.
The match was okay but the finish was idiotically counter-productive. In what way does it benefit the company for Nattie to beat Charlotte here instead of Becky (especially cleanly)?

Can we talk for a second about how infuriatingly stupid the commercial for WWE 2K18 is? The tagline for the game is “be like no one” and they’ve got this song telling me that I can (and perhaps should) be like all of these different wrestlers in the game. And isn’t the point of the game to play as my favorite wrestlers. If the slogan is going to be “be like no one” then shouldn’t it force you to be a CAW and have all of your favorite WWE Superstars as NPC-only?

MIKE KANELLIS vs. BOBBY ROODE- squash
I was very excited to see both of these guys when they showed up on the main roster over the summer, but at this point I just don’t give a sh*t about either one of them. That’s how bad the undercard on Smackdown has been. And this isn’t a new thing, either. They’ve made Sami Zayn a non-factor, and they booked Crews, Dolph, and Kalisto all so far into the ground that their careers as serious wrestlers pretty much feel over (although hopefully the change to 205 Live will do Kalisto some good.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- horrific
Dolph Ziggler comes out and tries out ideas for entrances. Where is he pulling all of this sh*t like the air-horns and noisemakers and confetti bottles out from? They can’t all possibly fit into his pockets, and I’m 100% certain he picked those noisemakers up from on the ground in the aisle. Why are they there? He already did the drum and the confetti bottles and siren. Do the noisemakers really add anything to his point? No! And yet Creative decided that they were necessary even though the only way they could have Dolph be able to use them was to have someone just put them down in the aisle earlier in the night so that Dolph could pick them up when the time came?
It is absolutely infuriating how stupid the people running this company are! They like to say that they are “making movies” and thus everyone is supposed to just ignore the cameras to the point of instructing the wrestlers never to look directly into them, even in situations like a backstage interview where not only does it make sense for the wrestlers to do so, but the idea that they shouldn’t because we’re all supposed to pretend that the cameras aren’t there actually makes the entire segment make no sense whatsoever (if there is no camera then why is Renee walking around with a microphone asking people questions? For her own curiosity?). So you should never look into the camera because “we’re making movies” but they have no problem with a production person running down to ringside during a commercial and planting items there for Dolph to use in this promo even though Dolph isn’t even scheduled to be out here?! COME ON! That would be like if Return of the Jedi while R2 and 3P0 are trying to get into Jabba’s Palace, Carrie Fischer walked right by them while putting her Boushh suit on and just slipped around the set piece of the door that they were trying to talk their way into opening.

And that they would decide that the thing that justifies doing something like that is this f*cking gimmick. Other gimmicks have been bad because they’ve been racist or sexist or homophobic or just something stupid like Mantaur or something out of place like Phantasio or an idiotic comedy gimmick, but this Dolph Ziggler gimmick might just be the bottom of the barrel as far as a gimmick that is bad for no other reason than being dull, uninteresting, a poorly executed. Dolph’s promo here was annoying as hell. You take Cody’s overdramatic speech patterns and in the Dolph’s whiny voice and the completely pointless subject matter we have here and you get go-away heat that rivals- if not exceeds- that which I feel towards Jinder Mahal, which is impressive when you realize that Jinder has been doing the same thing for six months while Dolph hasn’t even been at this for six weeks.
Dolph said that Bobby Roode thinks entrances are everything so he promises to have an entrance at the PPV that no one has ever seen before. Rather than refute Dolph’s charge that he is all show and no go by saying something along the lines of “I’m undefeated, and did you see how fast I just kicked Mike’s ass?!”, Bobby Roode just criticizes Dolph’s entrance tonight and does his own pose.

TAG TITLE MATCH HYPE SEGMENT- bad.
The Usos cut a bad promo. Then New Day came out and cut a promo that, while slightly better, was still way too goofy for guys about to go into what is supposed to be the most dangerous match WWE has to offer. I also really didn’t Big E.’s promo talking about how they have had such great matches together. Why does that kayfabe matter?

JINDER MAHAL PROMO- only slightly less boring than usual.

We’re getting an episode of the Fashion Files on the PPV. They have both Dolph and Jinder come out and do the same stupid thing for three straight weeks, but they’re going to was waste time on the PPV with a f*cking comedy sketch. This Fashion Files bullsh*t has been going on for months and nothing has happened.

BARON CORBIN vs. TYE DILLINGER- 5/10
AJ Styles was watching the match from backstage. The match was fine. Dillinger won with a small package. Hopefully they use this to turn the announced AJ vs. Corbin match into a Triple Threat match where AJ can pin Tye before we blow off AJ and Corbin at Survivor Series.

AJ STYLES PROMO- bad. They gave him bad lines to say, and he came off like an arrogant dick, lecturing Corbin about his attitude and rubbing his failures in his face.

RUSEV & ORTON BUILD UP SEGMENT-
It started off with Rusev in the ring, flanked by Aiden English. Rusev cut a promo that would be atrocious from anyone else but Rusev makes it work so perfectly. He was interrupted by Randy… and the ring announcer introduced Randy by saying “and his opponent, Randy Orton!” and I got extremely confused before I finally remembered that they had been advertising…

RANDY ORTON vs. AIDEN ENGLISH (w/Rusev)- no rating, good segment.
The first thing they did was have Rusev distract Orton by hopping up on the apron, attempting to replicate the success they had two weeks ago when Rusev beat Randy. English was able to gain control of the match, but couldn’t pin Orton. Orton won in about a minute with an impressive RKO. Rusev tried to sneak into the ring behind Orton when Orton wasn’t looking but Randy turned around so Rusev backed off.

SAMI ZAYN & SHANE MCMAHON BACKSTAGE- Sam cut the equivalent of that “you don’t understand what you’re getting into promo” that Foley cut on Sasha and Charlotte last year before their Hell in a Cell match, except that the thing he didn’t understand was an angry Kevin Owens rather than Hell in a Cell.

SHANE MCMAHON PROMO- he cut a bad promo saying that he wants their Hell in a Cell match to be Falls Count Anywhere, because apparently Hell in a Cell isn’t enough (also, now we know that the finish is going to be Shane jumping off of the cell and missing so he can get pinned). Kevin Owens showed up in the crowd and said he didn’t want to fight Shane right now so Shane called him a coward. Owens just ignored him and walked away. But Shane followed Owens into the crowd and up to the concession stands… where Owens was waiting and hit him from behind. Owens beat Shane up and powerbombed him through a table and I laughed my ass off the whole time because Shane brought this all on himself. The announcers all acted like Owens had done something terrible here, but Shane was the one who kept demanding a fight, then walked right into an obvious trap. Owens then came out to the ring and cut a great promo about how he was going to completely destroy Shane.
Shane eventually hobbled back down to the ring while Owens threatened him and mocked him, and all I can think about is much I want Owens to win this match because it will mean that Shane will be off TV for a while.
They brawled some more and Owens beat Shane up and Shane kept getting back up only to get beaten down some more. This went on for WAY too long, and all to get over how tough the forty-seven year old promoter’s son part-time wrestler is.